Does all of this revolve strictly around professional accomplishment and perseverance, or is there more to your equation?

Should there be?

I've asked myself those questions before, at various stages. I asked them again when this week's issue of Sports Illustrated landed in my mailbox.

Rushing out toward us on the cover, in all of his powerful purple glory, is Vikings running back Adrian Peterson.

It's not AP's first cover story, but it's the first to extensively discuss fatherhood along with football — and that's exactly where my perceptions of Peterson are conflicted.

Professionally, this has been a season of redemption and inspiration for AP. At age 30 — Methuselah by NFL running back standards — he returned from a year of imposed exile to lead the league in rushing and the Vikings to the playoffs.

Parentally ... well, that story isn't as inspiring.

The Peterson featured in the SI article is certainly introspective, certainly in touch with his anger and emotions.

But I'm not convinced that he gets it.

I'm not sure he ever will get it, or that he qualifies as a parental role model.

My perceptions come from the perspective of a father more than the perspective of a football fan. Maybe everybody's should.

AP’s context in the parenting department consists primarily of racking up a lot of frequent-flier miles. He has seven kids (that we know of), with multiple women, only one of whom is or ever has been his wife.

Peterson's reproductive proclivity certainly isn't unique in professional sports, where opportunities abound for casual canoodling. AP isn't even the league leader: New York Jets cornerback Antonio Cromartie has acknowledged 10 children, with multiple women.

This conclusively proves two things:

No. 1 — condoms are cheaper than child support payments.

No. 2 — not all professional athletes are familiar with the concept of using them.

It also strongly suggests something else: Being a sperm donor does not make you a father. And that’s something that should be included in the “role model” conversation.

AP's back story has undeniably inspiring elements. He grew up in poverty in Texas, and a younger brother was killed by a drunk driver when Peterson was 7.

His father went to prison for selling crack when AP was 13, leaving his mother to raise seven kids by herself. A close friend who was raised as Peterson's brother was shot and killed in 2007, just as AP was entering the NFL.

Injuries threatened to derail his career, both in college and in the NFL. He overcame all of that, and bounced back even better and stronger and more determined.

That was the face of the Vikings franchise until 2014, when Peterson was indicted by a Texas grand jury on child-abuse charges after prosecutors determined he used a tree branch to administer a "whuppin' " to one of his kids – a 4-year-old son he doesn’t live with, and only occasionally sees.

Eventually, Peterson pleaded no contest to a lesser charge of misdemeanor reckless assault. He was suspended for the final 15 games of the 2014 season, and wasn’t reinstated by the NFL until April.

The situation was handled awkwardly by tone-deaf NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who redefined arbitrary inconsistency with his ham-handed adjudication of the case.

That left Peterson indignant about being suspended for something he characterizes as parental "business as usual” in his home state of Texas. He’s entitled to some elements of that indignation.

But I don’t sense a lot of remorse, other than remorse that he got arrested and charged and suspended.

I also don’t sense a lot of awareness that he’s been a nonexistent parent to most of his stable of children, and what the long-term implications of that might be.

The thing that bothers me most about the Peterson case isn’t the actual whuppin’ of a 4-year-old. AP at least seems to understand that what he physically did was over the line.

What really bothers me is seven kids, most of whom don’t really know their father and never will other than an occasional glimpse on TV.

What really bothers me is irresponsibility and absentee "parenting."

Being a biological father and a real father are not even remotely the same. There’s more to being a parent than an occasional Skype call and a monthly support check. And there’s more to being a role model than carrying a football.

We have no right to expect our athletic heroes to be any more saintly than the public at large. But we have every right to expect people who bring children into the world to be involved in their upbringing. Kids deserve more than to be consequences of random procreation.

Peterson is unquestionably one of the finest athletes in the history of the NFL, and athletic talent will earn you a lot of second chances.

He just as unquestionably has fallen short in the parenting department. Some of those mistakes can’t be retroactively corrected, but Peterson has a second chance here, too.

He can learn from those mistakes, and use them as an inspiration.

He can become a positive example, and a better parent to his kids — all of them.

That's what a role model does. Hopefully, Adrian Peterson can become one of those off the football field, too.

Contact Times columnist Dave DeLand at 255-8771 or by email at ddeland@stcloudtimes.com. Follow him on Twitter @davedeland and on Facebook at Dave DeLand SC Times.